Wensleydale Railway Matters

At least it’s not Facebook... But, yet again, an anonymous group with big dreams, little tangible achievement, and a website that majors on corporate structure.

I hope they don’t damage the credibility of the Wensleydale Railway, either by association or by distraction.


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If they are who I believe they are, they include some who were much involved in getting the Wensleydale off the ground.

Although the website reads like 'just another preserved railway', the little I heard of a very similar proposal earlier this year suggested more a reinstatement scheme for through trains off the Network. Hawes is a busy destination with various attractions in and around it and southern part of the S & C regularly needs more capacity than north of Garsdale. Funding is the issue, and would, of course, need to be considerably higher for a 'network' standard line but there is always the Prime Ministers £500 million 'Reversing Beeching' Fund.......

Steven

 

I hope you are right.


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Hawes would be a sensible objective being a popular tourist destination, filling the gap from Northallerton via Aysgarth. The infrastructure, in terms of the track bed, is quite badly eroded west of Hawes itself. I wonder if many would want to make a circuitous journey via the ECML and the S&C which would be quite arduous and time consuming and therefore justify making the connection at Garsdale not that attractive [a bus might be a better substitution].

 

I've walked along or near too a lot of the Wensleydale railway from Redmire to Garsdale and Ive also been involved in rebuilding a disused railway to heritage standards.
The Wensleydale formation ranges from non existent to badly eroded ash and would need rebuilding throughout. At todays prices I think it would be around £3 to £4 million per mile plus land costs plus major infrastructure items bridges, viaducts etc. I'd suggest that the period where there are major new or extensions of preserved railways has passed.

 

Not much hope for Aln valley or L & B prospects then ?

 

not sure about that, there have been some reasonably large extensions opened the last two years, GWSR, Gwili and Llangollen spring to mind, albeit the powers to construct the line and ownership issues were already in place in these instances. I agree it is more difficult (but not impossible) to “start from scratch” from a position of no TWO and no land ownership, but even then the Rother Valley and L and B are exceeding the expectations here.

I take the view that in preservation there will always be a faction of “railway builders” keen to get involved and there people are not necessarily the ones that want to operate trains but take more pleasure in restoring vacant trackbed. As long as there people are around, extensions will be mooted.

regards

Matt

 

Anybody know which steam locomotive has been recruited for this?

 

I'm guessing 6046, as 5197 is at Telford. They were advertising footplate rides for £150 on their Facebook page.

 

Yep 6046 now in residence at Wensleydale until the end of December. It's a busy time for us crewing three locos at three different railways!

 

I'm presuming that's just as minders and you aren't providing full crews for each railway?

 

Nope full crews as per T&Cs of contract.

 

Rebuilding a long(ish) railway is perhaps the easy and more interesting to people bit. Keeping the infrastructure sound and in good repair afterwards is an altogether harder long term task (over say 50 years). Just like its easy to buy a loco but to keep it running financially long term with new fireboxes, overhauled generators etc is far more difficult once the previous investment in these by BR has worn out.

Brian

 

Really? Does the owner not trust the crews of those railways?

 

Nothing to do with a question of Wensleydale competency. The terms of the contract asked for provision of operating crews, so that’s what we are doing.

6046 has been at Dartmouth all summer and operated with no rep most days. So it’s not a case of wanting to play with “our” toys ourselves and not trusting anyone else.

 

Can anyone update us on the status of Northallerton West? The www.wensleydalerail.com website seems rather confused and out of date in this regard.

Their page about NW says
"It is regretted that during the 2018 operating season we will not be able to operate any services from Northallerton West.


Northallerton West is the latest station to open on the Wensleydale Railway. A small halt, serving the County Town of Northallerton, it is located off Springwell Lane. Access is by foot only and there is no parking nearby."
So, the 1st para says it is not open (no trains = not open to my way of thinking), but the later para says it is open.
I can also see that the online timetable shows no trains beyond Lemming Bar during 2019 so confirming that NW is not actually open.

So is anyone able to provide an update more recent than 2018.

 

Believe they are still working on the level crossing upgrades between Leeming bar and Northallerton. So nothing operating in that area until that work is completed.

 

Thank you.
I was looking at the WR as we have just booked a stay in Aysgarth in June
I expect we'll go for a train ride at some point but dissappointed to see that typically there are only 2 trains a day and starting at Aysgarth seems to only give 45 mins at Leeming Bar before the last train back to Aysgarth Obviously not so bad if you start from Leeming Bar.
I am of course assuming that the 2020 timetable won't be significantly different to the 2019 one.

 

We did something similar on our last holiday in the area. Boarded train af Redmire, only did the section to Leyburn had a few hours there then caught train back.

 

45 minutes is more that enough time at Leeming Bar, better to get off at Bedale. Instead.